Strengthening Networks in Turkey: Young Human Network (SNiT) developed by Youth Association for Habitat, Teachers Without Borders, Cisco Systems and United Nations Development Program (UNDP) aims to improve the communication and sharing between youth organizations by joining the virtual platform developed within the SNiT Project, you can communicate with different youth organizations, share your works with other like -minded young people by creating your own group and participate voluntarily in existing projects.

The SNiT Project can be considered as consisting of two steps:
1) The creation of the above mentioned Virtual platform.
2) The wide spreading the Youth Council Communication Network with the help of Local Youth Councils and Youth NGOs via this virtual platform.

1. Developing the Virtual Platform
The sharing of knowledge and experiences in the Youth Council Communication Network will increase the tolerance among young people coming from different social, economical and geographical backgrounds. This project also aims at informing local youth platform representatives on the subject of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) simultaneously with the creation of a virtual platform. Thus, local youth organizations will be strengthened and young people will be working towards a specific aim.

Perfecting local youth councils on ICT and improving their leadership capabilities, supporting the peer- education model via a virtual platform, sharing correct applications and malfunctions and designing new projects will together embrace youth and youth networks. Through this virtual platform, a database is in the process of being built for local youth council and youth NGO activities. This reporting system, which enables the on-line updating of youth council data, will allow for an organised and secure filing measure for all documents.

The platform will include general tools such as a file sharing center, discussion topics, on-line education platforms, profiles and themed groups. Discussion groups will usually focus on youth policies, participant democracy, leadership and communication. Various virtual activities to consolidate communication between young people and motivate them to work together on creative ideas will be actualized with the help of this platform.

Bringing local, regional and national projects together in this platform will build a broad framework around the needs, expectations and abilities of young people as well as a create a basis for information sharing.The project will also draw attention to the lack of a mutual youth policy in Turkey. This platform will help develop the knowledge of local youth council representatives on various subjects and increase the number of ideas devoted to developing a complete youth policy in Turkey.

Consequently, Turkish youth will have a higher chance of participating in policy formation processes and the “youth” componet will be defined as the intersection for different areas such as “youth and employment” and “youth and social services”. In this manner, the project will contribute to providing youth with better job opportunities and social services.

2. Widespreading the Youth Council Communication Network with the help of Local Youth Councils and Youth NGOs
Youth council representatives will be able to receive training courses on leadership, communication techniques, teamwork, project management, Web 2.0 and internet security within the Youth Council Communication Network.

The courses will enable youth council leaders to take on important roles in projects by improving their capabilities and will also increase young people’s participation within the virtual platform. Young leaders voluntary work will be monitored and supported by regional facilitators. These facilitators will be responsible for keeping the platform operational, increase active youth participation and contribute to improving the project.

Local meetings for voluntarily briefing representatives of youth NGOs, college students clubs, high school student associations, college student councils, city counsils, district counsils and various associations will be held by young leaders in local youth councils.